Dealing with Trauma can be daunting, not getting justice can be stressful and not getting healing during the low points in life that everyone incurs can be painful.

A seminar, coordinated by Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Equity Mayra Padilla, Equity Project Coordinator Jenna Carlson and Richmond RYSE Associate Director Kanwarpal Dhaliwal, will address these and many other problems Saturday March 17 in Fireside hall from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“This training will help us as faculty and college better help students that deal with trauma. It will also give skills that teach about self-care and how to find a safe environment,” Padilla said. “I dealt with trauma growing up. I grew up in the Bay Area, so I am happy to learn and become and advocate for students and people to create a healthy environment. And to pass on the support.”

Carlson said, “There are five goals we would like to reach in this training event. Learning grounding, gaining skills, handling secondary trauma, getting resources and learning next steps.” The grounding will help with context setting for historical and systemic trauma. The skills are for faculty to be able to work better with students impacted by trauma.

Secondary Trauma is triggered by more in-depth circumstances that the training event will cover. It will give faculty members the skills to better help with students who deal with more intense situations.

“The resources are to help faculty and staff become more familiar with on and off campus resources for students,” Carlson said.

Business Administration major Rebecca Hernandez said, “This event is crucial and a great opportunity for our college to be a part of. You never know what trauma people are going through. It’s important to learn how to deal with trauma and to share your experience with others.”

The RYSE Center of Richmond started this Trauma, Justice and healing workshop back in 2016. It started as a listening campaign which was a community engaged inquiry of young people’s experiences, articulations or trauma.

The group started by training youth in the community that were looking for a safe empowering space.

Padilla said the processes that staff and faculty learn will provide a safe space for students that are dealing with trauma. Attendees will learn special techniques on how to create a sense of compassion while building a relationship with students.

“The main question we as faculty would probably want to know is, how do we develop policies? How do we address students that aren’t up to code of conduct? And how to help students better understand their behavior without traumatizing them even more,” Padilla said.

Carlson said, “We want to bring tools, resources, structure and even get in touch with diverse cultures and people. There will be a world map at the training event to better understand different types of trauma in different countries and cultures and how they deal with getting justice.”

Director of Marketing and Media Design Brandy Howard said, “We definitely need something like this on campus. It gives staff additional tools for trauma and mental illness because not a lot of people know about these topics.”

To RSVP for this training event go to Eventbrite link  https://traumajusticehealing.eventbrite.com .